Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2008 12:05:31 GMT -5
Call me sentimental (you would be right) but in a world of high priced stone, ebay bidding wars and a desire to own the biggest and best,I get the most enjoyment out of "simple" rocks. The self collected, everyday common kind. The kind that are often forgotten or discarded when something better comes along. There is just something to be said for a stone that you have found yourself.....one that jumps out at you among millions for a specific reason that only you know, and made even more special by the fact that it was probably overlooked by many others.
I have many materials that I have purchased for cabbing....some very expensive. And although I know what they are and where or who I bought them from.....the story stops there. However, if you pick out a common stone from my self collected pile, I can almost always tell you where I found it, what trip I was on, who I was with, and maybe even what I was thinking at the time. It represents a moment in my life. Sentimental? Yes. Am I putting much more thought into it than many? Probably. But that is what makes this hobby so special for me. To be able to show someone a beautiful piece of jewelry and say that I made it and that it was collected by my daughter on a recent trip is just very special.
With that said, my husband and I just returned from a trip to the San Juan Islands. I came home with about 5 lbs of mixed rock........jasper, quartz, and granite. Many with neat colors or patterns. The other tourists were making me laugh. They were obviously not rockhounds but were there because the map said "you can find the occasional agate on the beach". They were down there digging around on the beach, picking up really neat patterned rocks and tossing them down just because they werent agates. I guess they just had no idea what could be done with them. At one point a woman walked up to me, her eyes big as she looked at my ziploc bag filled with rocks and said "are THOSE agates!!!" I told her no, mostly jasper, quartz etc. Her face fell and she said "oh" and walked off to start tossing more rocks down because they werent agates LOL.
Here are a few photos of what I found.......nothing extraordinary or expensive but the great memories of this trip with my husband and all of the beautiful scenery around us will always come to mind when I look at them.
If you are still with me, thanks for reading my ramblings.
Shannon
I have many materials that I have purchased for cabbing....some very expensive. And although I know what they are and where or who I bought them from.....the story stops there. However, if you pick out a common stone from my self collected pile, I can almost always tell you where I found it, what trip I was on, who I was with, and maybe even what I was thinking at the time. It represents a moment in my life. Sentimental? Yes. Am I putting much more thought into it than many? Probably. But that is what makes this hobby so special for me. To be able to show someone a beautiful piece of jewelry and say that I made it and that it was collected by my daughter on a recent trip is just very special.
With that said, my husband and I just returned from a trip to the San Juan Islands. I came home with about 5 lbs of mixed rock........jasper, quartz, and granite. Many with neat colors or patterns. The other tourists were making me laugh. They were obviously not rockhounds but were there because the map said "you can find the occasional agate on the beach". They were down there digging around on the beach, picking up really neat patterned rocks and tossing them down just because they werent agates. I guess they just had no idea what could be done with them. At one point a woman walked up to me, her eyes big as she looked at my ziploc bag filled with rocks and said "are THOSE agates!!!" I told her no, mostly jasper, quartz etc. Her face fell and she said "oh" and walked off to start tossing more rocks down because they werent agates LOL.
Here are a few photos of what I found.......nothing extraordinary or expensive but the great memories of this trip with my husband and all of the beautiful scenery around us will always come to mind when I look at them.
If you are still with me, thanks for reading my ramblings.
Shannon